Dragon Quest

** QUEST LOG **

▪︎ Hero's Level: 20

• Hp: 142
• Mp: 126

▪︎ Equipment:
• Weapon: Erdrick's Sword
• Armor: Erdrick's Armor
• Shield: Silver Shield
• Accessories: Dragon Scale, Warrior's Ring
• Items: Medicinal Herbs, Magic Keys, Fairy Flute, Princess' Pledge

▪︎ Spells: Heal, Sizz, Snooze, Glow, Fizzle, Evac, Zoom, Holy Protection, Midheal, Sizzle

☆ Artifacts: Sunstone, Rain Staff, Rainbow Drop, Mark of Erdrick

☆ Princess Gwaelin: Saved

☆ Dragonlord Status: Slain

• Gold: 22.857

♡ Deaths: 4

** QUEST COMPLETED (11/2024) **

This game aged so gracefully!

I'm not sure why but now that I'm studying engineering and my stress is the most its ever been I get more pleasure than I ever have from monotony in gaming. I went back and 100% death stranding, celeste, ds1, majoras mask, and now I'm going back through the dragon quest games. I might skip 7, 8, and 11 because they're long af, but I'll see when I get there. Anyway, this game is really good. I played the game boy remaster with the new ending and upscaled graphics and its quaint and the dragon quest personality is here, if in its smallest form. Yuji Hori had a remarkable vision for a fantasy adventure game with power scaling and Dragon Quest 1 is more of a perfect application of that single idea than the revolutionary jrpg franchise it would become. It's very of its time, but it has a lot of ideas that JRPGs still employ today. Fast travel, late game difficulty spikes, high level enemies at the start. The progression doesn't feel linear because of how open and big the world is, but I must confess as this is like my 5th playthrough I still used a guide. I remembered a lot, but little things like Loto's emblem being very very hidden with a very shitty hint to help push this game down. The grind is not bad at all, and even a little therapeutic if you put a youtube video on in the background. I also used save states because I do what I want, and that made metal slimes feel like a reward rather than a dice roll. Feels like a tech demo where ideas are very surface level, but it keeps the pacing very tight and the game short so you can't deny what a master class this is in game design.

Currently, this remake is the best way to experience the first Dragon Quest.
Considering this was first release for flip phones, there's actually a lot of quality here. The pixel art is good and the world Is small enough to make it approachable on mobile without feeling lost.
The only things I did dislike were the soundtrack (only 6 songs) and the ancient english used on NPCs. But overall, nothing that would mine this experience.

Played this to get in touch with the rpg grand daddy

It's basically grinding: the video game. But I love how it just drops you into the world and says "Go explore!" You talk to npcs, you find hints about the world, you find some really cool secrets, it's great. Plus it's super short, you can run through it in less than 10 hours. It's got a unique charm that I really liked.

Other rpgs do everything this game does better, but it's still alright. Highly recommend!